7 Questions for Vacuum King James Dyson

Few people like vacuuming. It's tiring, repetitive and about as far from fun as any household task can be. Perhaps that's why so many pay top dollar for Dyson vacuums: They look great, and the bag-free chamber allows you to see what you suck, as you suck. Of course, when James Dyson invented the bagless vacuum nearly 25 years ago, he created a new product category, and the most lustworthy line of cleaners since the first Hoovers. We sat down with the vacuum king to discuss where his ideas come from, where he sees them going, and what really matters in an appliance. —Seth Porges

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Why do you think bagless vacuums never took off until the first Dysons?
We invented the first vacuum cleaner that worked without a bag or filter. I did that quite a long time ago. I used a clear container to take the dirt and separate it through cyclonic action. My idea wasn't to make a bagless vacuum, but to get rid of the problems of bags. Bags clog very quickly—dust goes into the bag and clogs it. When I launched my first machine, a number of manufacturers said: "Oh that's a bagless machine," and they stuffed a filter in and put a container around it and made it look like mine. In my view, that's not a bagless vacuum. It has a filter, which is the same as a bag: a large area of filter media that very often clogs.

So why do you think people like these vacuums so much?
We're separating dirt by a different system. Instead of using a filter membrane or bag to trap dust, we're spinning it out. To me, the fun is seeing it spin out. Seeing the dirt separate instead of watching it disappear anonymously into a bag. For ours, you can see what you are doing and feel like you are doing something productive. There's a sort of morbid fascination in seeing all that filth. More than that, it's the fun of seeing you've cleaned the room very well.

So what would your dream vacuum be? What features would you love to see pop up in future models?
We are developing new motor technologies. What we have in the hand dryer over there [points at Dyson's AirBlade hand dryer]. That motor goes to 100,000 rpms, whereas vacuum motors go to 30,000 rpms. We have vacuums that reach 100,000 in Japan, and are bringing it into other vacuums over here. They are half the weight, half the size, have more power, and are more efficient. Efficiency is especially important for electricity consumption.

So which vacuum do you use at home?
Well, all of them. Exactly that—a big closet full of them. And I'm usually trying out the latest one as well. Apartments are getting smaller on a whole. Houses are getting smaller. People don't need great big vacuums anymore. You can get the same performance in something smaller and lighter to store, and that has more maneuverability. That's the way things are gonna go. Anything that makes a vacuum cleaner lighter, more powerful and use less electricity.

When did you decide you wanted to go into the vacuum industry?
Well, I do hand dryers as well! I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance. I had a cloth one you had to bang to clean out. Twenty years later when I had my own house, I even found that so-called modern ones with paper bags still had the same problems—the same disgusting problem of dog smell and dust and noise and still bending over to pick things up. It was at that point, I think. Then I saw on top of a lumberyard this giant cyclone, and that gave me the idea to develop the cyclones—one of only a few filtration devices that don't have cloggable membranes. Even electrostatic filters can theoretically clog, but they don't even work in this application yet. The cyclone was on top of a factory, 30 ft. high, collecting sawdust all day long and losing suction.

So do you think that people have always wanted to love their vacuums, but were just never given a product they could really enjoy?
Vacuum cleaners are not a sexy area. They were, in fact, an unloved sector. There was nothing going on at all—no difference between products, nobody trying anything new, none of the excitement of surfboards or windsurfers and tennis rackets and anything made by enthusiasts. I became an enthusiast for vacuums—for the engineering.

How do you test your new cleaners?
[Picks up vacuum and drops it from a height of 3 ft. Then does it again.] We have 150 people on a minicourse 24 hours a day trying to break the vacuums—running them down and smashing them down steps, running them into walls with points on them, and slamming them down. They're not doing it once, but doing it continuously—repetitive testing on various things, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. We're trying to break it. Even though it will never be used like that, we can design those problems out—not by adding money necessarily, but by adding better design.